


a glooming peace this morning brings

by Carmarthen



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Beginnings, Fix-It, Gen, Hope, Peace, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2403902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tybalt and Romeo meet at a funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a glooming peace this morning brings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [privatesnarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatesnarker/gifts).



> h/t drcalvin for suggesting a scenario where Tybalt and Romeo meet at the funeral of one or both of their fathers. I hope this stands alone as a self-contained beginning, although it could easily be the beginning of a divergence AU where (I hope) nobody dies.
> 
> Title from Shakespeare, as usual.

Romeo had very nearly skipped the funeral mass, but some vague sense that it would push his mother—his iron-hard mother, who he had never seen weep, not even when the servant brought the news and she paled and stumbled, barely catching herself against the table—too far.

He had scarcely known his father, after all, only as a distant, frowning figure of disapproval. He’d had little time for a son who cared nothing for trade or feuds, who had no wish to plot in darkened rooms whom to bribe and whom to have quietly removed. Romeo had been surprised at his death—Lord Montague seemed eternal as a statue of a warrior angel in the churchyard, and as inhuman—but not saddened, save on his mother's behalf. And so he did as she asked without complaint, dancing attendance on her as best he could until she remembered again why he made a poor courtier.

He had not expected it to be a joint mass, overseen by a grim and glowering prince desperate to keep two deaths from turning to twenty. By the time Romeo slipped in through the church door and found a place to stand, the great room was nearly full, all eyes fixed on the priest, droning away about noble pillars of Verona and tragic loss.

The man beside Romeo gave a snort of plain disbelief, and Romeo turned to see the tall, lanky form of Tybalt of the Capulets, in rumpled black that made him look sallow and ill, his cheeks hollow and hair lank and unwashed. He looked like a man sick with grief, and yet—

"Why don't you sit with your aunt and uncle?" Romeo asked, his tongue speaking before his mind could tell him why it was better not to extend a hand to an alleycat.

Tybalt gave him an unreadable look, brows raised and mouth tight, and replied, "Why don't _you_ sit with your lady mother, Montague?"

For the first time, Romeo felt queerly embarrassed to be a Montague. He had not been a part of this business—had never been a part of it—did not Tybalt know that? 

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said, impulsively, because Tybalt looked so terribly unhappy. It had been his father who died first, after all.

To his surprise, Tybalt gave a sharp little laugh, one that made their neighbors turn and glare at them and then look uncomfortably away when Tybalt glared back at them, teeth bared. "Don't be."

Romeo could think of nothing to say to that, so he looked back at the priest, who has switched to Latin, a language which he spoke poorly and Romeo understood worse, and then at the room. They were at the very back, among the lesser merchants and upper servants who mingled together in a crowd, but at the front, it was as if a sharp line had been drawn through the room. Lady Capulet, Tybalt's aunt, leaned heavily on her husband, sobbing; across from her, Romeo's own mother watched her with her face set into a marble mask, only her eyes alive with hatred. And around them, a hundred pairs of eyes on either side of the room, watching and gleaming with that same reflected hatred. If it were not for the Prince's black-clad guards, their swords worn openly when no one else had been permitted to carry even an eating-knife into the church, Romeo knew the violence simmering under the surface of grieving piety would boil over in an instant.

He could no longer look at them; the room seemed suddenly airless. "We've shown our faces," he said to Tybalt, who was by far the more pleasant sight, even if he looked about to collapse at any moment, "done our duties. Let's leave."

This time surprise flickered over Tybalt's features, although he regarded Romeo's outstretched hand as if he offered a live toad, dripping slime and poison. "I suppose you are right. Lead the way, Mon—" He paused, making a grimace that Romeo suspected was meant to be a smile, if an unpracticed one. “Romeo.”

If he still did not take Romeo's hand, that was still something, to be _Romeo_ instead of _Montague._

Perhaps, Romeo thought as they stepped out of the stifling closeness of too much unwashed flesh and incense into the clear air and warm light of the sun, everything would be all right after all.


End file.
